Chinese National Who Posed as Filipina Mayor Jailed for Life in Massive Human-Trafficking Scam

A Philippine court has sentenced Alice Guo, a Chinese national who posed as a Filipina to win local office, and seven co-defendants to life imprisonment after finding them guilty of running a large human-trafficking operation tied to an online gambling complex.

Prosecutors say Guo oversaw a sprawling compound north of Manila that housed office buildings, luxury villas and a large swimming pool, where hundreds were forced to run scam operations under threat of torture. The facility was raided in March 2024 after a Vietnamese worker escaped and notified authorities.

Investigators discovered more than 700 people at the site, including Filipinos, Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysians, Taiwanese, Indonesians and Rwandans. Officials also seized documents that allegedly tied Guo to a company that owned the compound.

"After just over one year, the court gave us a favorable decision. Alice (Guo) was convicted along with seven other co-accused. Life imprisonment," said regional state prosecutor Olivia Torrevillas outside the courthouse.

A spokesman for the Philippine Anti-Organized Crime Commission said Guo and three others were convicted of organizing trafficking operations inside the compound, while four additional defendants were found guilty of acts of trafficking. Guo, 35, had been arrested by Indonesian police in September 2024 after fleeing the Philippines.

Legal and political fallout

Although Guo had been elected mayor of Bamban, the town where the compound was located, a Manila court ruled in June that she was ineligible to hold the office because she is a Chinese citizen. Her election had drawn scrutiny after the raid exposed the scale of the operation.

Regional context

The case has drawn attention to a growing transnational scam industry across Southeast Asia. A United Nations report cited in the investigation estimated that victims in the wider region lost up to $37 billion in 2023 and warned that global losses were likely far higher.

Analysts say such centers proliferated in the Philippines after a government regulator was empowered to issue licenses nationwide during the previous administration. In 2024, amid public outrage over the Guo case and similar incidents, President Ferdinand Marcos announced a ban on offshore gambling operations and ordered foreign nationals working at these sites to leave the country.

The convictions mark a significant legal outcome in the fight against organized online fraud and human trafficking in the region, and authorities say they will continue investigations into other networks and facilitators linked to the operations.